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At Home in a New Storage Niche
Since Pete Warhurst founded PODS in 1998, it has expanded to franchises in 45 states. "We think that the majority of the U.S. population in the 30-to-60-year-old bracket prefer our model" of storage, he says.
(By Chris O'meara -- Associated Press)
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Randy Weissman, president of the fledgling Mobile Self-Storage Association, said that some smaller, independent companies were dealing in mobile storage containers before PODS burst onto the scene, but the company refined the concept and focused on the residential market, which now makes up about 80 percent of its business.
About 150 other companies of various sizes now are competing with PODS, Weissman said. They range from mom-and-pop independents to larger companies operating in multiple states, such as Mobile Attic Inc. and Door To Door Storage & Moving.
But the PODS name has become synonymous with the industry, Weissman said. He noted that a municipality that recently passed an ordinance governing where mobile storage containers could be placed termed it an "anti-PODS" law.
"From an awareness standpoint, it's been fantastic for all of us," said Weissman, president of Storage Banc in St. Louis.
A backlash, Weissman said, has come in the form of those new rules and regulations in a few municipalities and neighborhoods against putting the units in the streets and various other places.
PODS units have come in handy in less conventional situations than moving. The company's rapid-response team responded with units for use in Hurricane Katrina recovery, and some college students who came to the Gulf Coast to help out over spring break even lived in them for a week. PODS franchises around the country provided units for collection of donations for storm victims.
On a less serious note, a local radio shock jock is said to have once -- without the company's knowledge -- put scantily clad women in a PODS unit at a remote broadcast for a kind of drive-by peep show.
Despite stories floating around, the company says it doesn't have any official reports of people actually living in PODS units for any length of time.
"But if you think about it," spokeswoman Susan Green said, "a pod would be better than a tent."
